Surrender The
Rain
Spoken Introduction
I've got to stop
this obsession of revenge and fear
I've been running from everything that I once held dear
And it feels so cold; it feels like sin
I've got to stop this obsession and start living again
"Annie, Annie no!" Jarod woke from the
nightmare in a cold sweat, sitting straight up in his bed, heart pounding and
chest heaving.
"Another nightmare?" The same black man
who'd been by his bed when he'd regained consciousness three weeks ago stood in
his doorway.
"I don't think they're nightmares, Curt."
Jarod answered slowly, raking his fingers through his hair in a fashion that
indicated his distress, although he didn't realized it.
He wasn't in the hospital room anymore, but in a
spartan, barrack like room. His leg was still encased in a cast, but it had
been changed into a walking cast a week ago, much to his relief. His memories
had returned in bits and pieces until suddenly, one morning about two weeks
after he'd awakened, he remembered everything except the actual accident that
had beaten him up so badly. He knew he'd probably never remember that.
Over the weeks he'd been recovering he had gotten to
know the man watching over him; Special Agent Curtis Washington.
Curt never really told Jarod which branch of the
government he was working for, but Jarod didn't really care. All that mattered
to him was that Curtis was working to bring down the Centre and that he wanted
Jarod to help him and the rest of his team.
"I know that they're funded, at least in part,
and protected by one or more of the so called "black agencies" in our
government, Jarod." He'd admitted during one of their initial talks.
"But that just makes it more imperative that we put a stop to them. What they're
doing is contrary to everything America stands for. It's the job of my agency
to keep our government as close to the ideal as we can."
"So what are you doing about the political
double talk going on?" Jarod had grinned.
"Not a thing." Curt grinned back.
"That's up to the voters."
No, what Curt's nameless organization handled was
riding herd on the secret government programs and groups that violated
America's ethical foundation in the name of national security. They were nameless
for a reason----every one of those secret groups would cheerfully have wiped
out this counter organization if they'd known enough to do so.
"You could say that where they're "black
agencies" that we're a "white agency"." Curt had explained
cheerfully.
Curt and his people had been trying to track down
Jarod for as long as the Centre had. Fortunately for him, they'd been very
close when Jarod lost consciousness while fleeing from Lyle and the rest of his
Centre pursuers, and crashed the Towncar he'd escaped in. His precipitous
departure from Sam and Sally's house through the living room window had left
him with several nasty slashes. He had lost a little bit too much blood and
passed out, which had caused the accident.
One of Curt's men had reached the hospital Jarod had
been taken to before the Centre had even discovered the wrecked Towncar. By the
time they had started searching for Jarod in local hospitals, Jarod was being
air lifted to this secret base, hidden deep underground. It still made him smile,
being in an extensive underground building again.
The first thing he'd done, when he remembered who
and what he was, was to demand to be released. Curt had opened the door,
revealing that there were no guards.
"You aren't a captive, Jarod, you're a guest.
And, I hope, a member of our team. We know your abilities and it's the belief
of my superiors that having you on our payroll will make the difference in our
efforts against the Centre. However, if you choose not to help us, you are free
to go anytime you wish. We've even been instructed to provide you with funds
and transportation, since it's not our desire to see you back in the Centre's hands.
But, Jarod," Curt had added seriously. "For your own sake, could you
wait a little before trying to leave?"
Curt gestured at the leg, still in traction at that
time.
"You need to heal, and I've been informed
you'll probably need physical therapy to regain full use of that leg. I really
don't want to see you take off and end up captured because you couldn't run
fast enough."
Even before he had a reason to, Jarod found himself
trusting the agent. He'd tested his "freedom" of course, demanding a
wheelchair the day they'd taken his leg out of traction and changed his cast,
and taking an elevator to the surface of the installation.
It was hidden beneath the barn of a working farm,
and Jarod was irresistibly reminded of Donoterase. But unlike that installation,
there were no people shooting at him, no locked doors, and the guards were
polite and helpful. Finally convinced, Jarod threw himself into helping Curt
and Curt's organization.
"So, if it isn't a nightmare, what is it?"
Curt asked, pulling Jarod out of his memories.
"Anne and I share a bond." Jarod told Curt
seriously. "I don't know if it is because of the genetic engineering that
was done on both of us or what, but I sense her, usually when I'm asleep. I
think she can sense me too, but she's been blocking me out lately."
Curt nodded, accepting what most people would
consider insanity at face value. His organization hadn't known about Annie, but
Jarod had told him all about her during his month long stay. While Jarod’s
words sounded implausible at best, their psychiatrist had declared that Jarod
was mentally as sound as his life could let him be. She insisted that he wasn’t
delusional, and Curt had taken her word for it. They all knew that Jarod could
do things that were nothing short of impossible, and that his ability to get
into the mind of someone else was almost frightening.
"I'm sure that she's been recaptured by them
and that she's in Lyle's hands. Some of the things I've been seeing in my
dreams could only come from his twisted mind. They think they've broken
her." His brown eyes were anguished as flashes of Anne's torture passed
before her eyes.
"I take it you think they're mistaken?"
"Curt, she isn't the clone-construct they
thought they were getting, she's got the mind and the memories of a woman who
lived another life. And that life wasn't pretty for most of the beginning. My
Annie is a survivor, and she's stronger than even she knows. She's fooled
them."
"How?" Curt was skeptical, having been
well trained in the sciences of torture, brainwashing, and breaking people. He
didn’t want Jarod to get his hopes up if there truly was no hope for the woman
he loved. Jarod understood his skepticism and smiled sadly.
"She grew up in an abusive home. She developed
a way to remove the part of her that suffered from the rest of her. I think
she's done the same thing now. Part of her has certainly been broken, just as
Lyle would want, but most of her is just withdrawn, waiting for a chance to
escape."
"Let me guess, you want us to storm the Centre
and rescue her?" Curt asked, his face expressing the impossibility of that
happening.
"Yes!" Jarod hissed fiercely. "And I
want to leave right now!"
He glared at Curt, pain lurking in his eyes as he
went on in a quieter voice.
"But I know that’s not going to happen. I know
we aren’t ready yet, and it isn't just Annie that we have to worry about."
"That's right. The Centre's monstrosities
effect countless people around the world." Curt agreed grimly. Jarod
smiled a self-depreciating smile.
"That's true, but I was thinking in terms of my
children."
"What?!" Curt was astonished. This was the
first he'd heard of children.
"Annie was pregnant with my children, two boys
and a girl. The girl is with her now----I'm not sure where my sons are, but I
am asking you to try and find them for me. Since I haven't had any indication
that Sally is with Anne, maybe she escaped somehow with my boys." Jarod
explained. "All I know for sure is that Deirdre is with Anne, and that
Anne believes the boys are alive, but somewhere else."
"I'll set some of my men on it right
away." Curt assured Jarod swiftly.
Like most of his organization, he was a bachelor,
but he had nieces and nephews, and his heart shuddered at the thought of any of
them being at the Centre's mercy. He was astonished, and deeply grateful, at
Jarod’s self-restraint about racing to the rescue of his woman. It wasn’t what
Jarod’s history had led them to expect of him, but the man he’d met weeks ago
was a different person than the man he’d been tracking for the past 4 years.
"We have to speed things up, though."
Jarod added. "I’m trying to be reasonable about this, but Lyle has my wife
and every moment she spends with him is hell. He’s already hurt her badly, and
I can’t sit back while he hurts her more. I want more men working under
me."
Curt nodded his head once.
"Done." He agreed instantly, understanding
Jarod’s position. If it had been him, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to show
the same restraint. He just hoped that Anne was as strong as Jarod claimed she
was, for Jarod’s sake.
Jarod looked at him, his face set and grim.
"Curt, ask Dr. Miles to come see me too, will you? I need to talk to her
before I start planning the next phase of our strategy."
Curt nodded, his eyes showing the sympathy that men
often find hard to express openly. "I'd want to talk to her too, if I was
in your shoes." He admitted soberly. "And I want you to know, I
respect the way you've worked with her on dealing with the issues that
concerned us so much. Not many men would even be willing to admit that their
minds had been damaged by a life like yours, much less be willing to work to
change it."
"Anne was always on me to get therapy."
Jarod admitted with a bitter-sweet smile. "I never accepted that there was
anything wrong with me that I couldn't handle. Now, now that it’s almost too
late, I can see that she was right. If I hadn’t been blinded by my hatred of
the Centre, if I’d looked for some way to take them down months ago, instead of
playing my petty little mind games with them, Anne and the babies would be safe
with me right now."
"You don’t really know that, Jarod." Curt
contradicted him quietly. "You may be a genius, but you’re only one man,
how much do you think you could have honestly accomplished by yourself?"
"More than I have." Jarod answered
stubbornly. "But might-have-beens accomplish nothing. What’s important now
is that I need to be able to think clearly if I'm going to rescue Anne and make
a place where she and our children can be safe and secure. At the moment all I
can think about it smashing Lyle’s pretty face into a shapeless pulp---which is
satisfying, but hardly productive."
Curt gave him an understanding smile and a nod
before exiting the room. Jarod took advantage of his en suite bathroom to
shower away some of his negative thoughts Dr. Miles came to help him work
through his burning anger and hatred for the people who had destroyed his life
for so long, and were now torturing the woman he loved. He was reasonably calm
by the time she arrived.
My "training" began the next day. He had a
secret room somewhere in the Centre, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was
there that he played with knives and scalpels, an amazing assortment of whips,
and branding irons. Yes, I’ll take some of the scars from that time with me to
my grave.
Time ceased to have meaning during this period. I
don’t know how long it was, it certainly seemed like forever. Only Deirdre and
the nightly dreams I had of Jarod kept me going. Even with my alternate taking
most of the abuse, enough of it filtered through to make my life a hell that
was nearly unbearable. And the day came when even my alternate couldn’t take
it.
It took two days of catatonia before he realized
that we weren’t faking it; that his source of entertainment was gone. Then he
bustled us to the infirmary where we were treated for various injuries and kept
sedated for another two days. It was effective---we started to return, our body
tricked into believing we were finally safe. Somehow Lyle knew, even though I
know we hadn’t given any sign of cognizance.
He whisked us away from the infirmary, and back to
his torture room. He didn’t touch us again, thank God, but he described in
excruciating detail just what he had planned for me if I didn’t "shape
up". She took over again, cowering and shivering to the point that he was
satisfied, and released us for a blessed period of privacy and silence.
The next period remains foggy in my mind. Lights
were always on and bright, meals came infrequently, personal hygiene, comfort,
even peace and quiet became distant memories. Soon I became nothing more than a
disembodied observer; noting the horror but not a part of it. …
The cell was a 4' X 6' cement box, unadorned with so
much as a slab of wood to sleep on. There were no windows, just a naked light
bulb hanging from the ceiling far above her reach, and the speakers in every
corner. If her head started to nod, her eyes close, noise would blast from
them, loud enough to wake the dead. She didn’t care anymore. She squatted in
her corner, rocking mindlessly, fingers twining and untwining constantly, and
mouth moving silently.
Suddenly she stiffened and cocked her head alertly.
A moment later she seemed to collapse in on herself, rocking faster and lips
trembling and they too moved faster. If she could have, she would have been
whimpering.
He was coming.
Lyle entered the room, black suit, gloved hand,
impeccable grooming and all. Instead of the Sweepers who usually accompanied
him, though, a thin bald man with a squeaky oxygen tank followed him into the
room.
Both men wrinkled their noses at the stench in the
room.
As soon as the two men had entered the room the
woman had ceased rocking and thrown herself to her knees, forehead pressed to
the cold hard floor. Raines frowned at her shivering form.
"You said she was ready, Lyle, not that she was
mindless." He rasped unhappily.
"She understands well enough." Lyle avowed
confidently. He snapped the fingers of his undamaged hand. "Here,
Eve." He ordered briefly, pointing to a spot by his side.
Looking like a crab the woman scurried on hands and
feet to the spot indicated, kneeling again as soon as she was in place.
"Are you happy, Eve?" He asked her, his
voice deceptively gentle. She raised her head and shoulders off of the floor
high enough to nod her head energetically.
"Do you want to leave the Centre, dear? To walk
in a park maybe?"
Such sweetness, such concern. She wasn’t fooled; she
knew his tricks now.
She shook her head so energetically that bits of
filth flew from her hair, striking the men's trousers. She knew that there
would doubtlessly be retaliation for that, but the part of her that observed
with intelligence felt a sense of satisfaction at the fouling of their fine
clothes. Lyle would undoubtedly burn those pants when he changed out of them.
He frowned ominously, but Raines spoke before he
could strike her.
"Will she remain docile when she's cleaned up
and moved to more comfortable surroundings?" He wheezed skeptically.
"After all, we can hardly allow the child to stay here."
'The child?'
She didn’t know, or care, how long it had been since
we’d held the infant, but that other part of her fastened onto the words like a
tick to a dog. Her subservient position didn’t change in the least, but the
observer in her moved just a little closer to the forefront of their mind.
"If she doesn't," Lyle informed the old
man cheerfully, "then I will certainly bring her back for a refresher
course." His smile broadened at the shudder that wracked the woman's form.
"Then have her cleaned up and moved to the
quarters we've prepared on SL-5." Raines ordered indifferently. "And
make sure that leg is properly tended to. She'll have gangrene next if you
aren't careful! We need her alive to tend the brat."
"It still hasn’t adjusted?" Lyle
questioned.
"Never saw such a thing before in my
life." Raines grumbled. "Brat should have forgotten her mother by
now; she’s just an infant, after all! Instead she’s refusing to eat, refusing
to be comforted. The doctor warned me that she’ll die if something doesn’t turn
around for her soon."
"We’ve gone through too much to obtain it to
risk loosing it now." Lyle agreed grimly. "Perhaps it will be better
for her to raise the child anyway." He added thoughtfully.
"Now that she's been properly trained she can
teach the child how to be obedient. You will teach her for us, won't you,
Eve?" He asked pointedly.
Again, the woman nodded her head vigorously, her
emotionless face still hidden by the veil of her hair. Deep inside of her the
other part of her consciousness nurtured a tiny flame of hope, a flame that she
had believed completely extinguished until now. Perhaps she would stick around
a little longer after all. She could always change her mind later, if her daughter
was once again removed from her care.
Life became almost tolerable after that. During the
day I had Deirdre, and I was in control. Lyle hardly ever visited our room
then; he hated Deirdre with a passion, even though he knew better than to harm her.
The Centre had too much riding on their one specimen of second generation
Pretender. At least they hoped she was Pretender like her father.
Deirdre had grown during the gray time of pain. Even
though Lyle and Raines said she wasn’t eating, that she was failing to thrive,
my mother’s eye could see the changes in her. The brown curls were longer,
waving softly at the nape of her neck. Her blue eyes were clearer, and could
focus on me from across the room. Her smile was still toothless, but she was
rolling over easily, and pushing herself up on her tiny arms. She was still
very small, though, and hadn’t gained any of the weight I would have expected.
But that began to change now that she was mine during the day.
The doctor who oversaw her care and health ordered
me to start her on baby food; fruits and vegetables and cereal. She was
drinking a soy formula, which was good as my own milk had dried up at some
point. He told me to feed her as much as she would take, told me to give her
lots of physical attention, and warned me that he’d be monitoring me closely.
He obviously didn’t know I was her mother. Or maybe he thought I’d had some
sort of breakdown and couldn’t be trusted with my own child, who knows?
He soon changed his tune, though, as Deirdre began to
thrive as much as anyone could hope for. She greeted me every morning with a
happy smile, and filled my days with the happy sounds of her coos and giggles.
I had no problem giving her all of the cuddling that the doctor had demanded.
In fact, it was sometimes hard for me to lay her down when she slept. She was
my only joy, my only reason for living.
At 6pm things would change radically. After her
evening bath and bottle, when I’d rocked her to sleep, a nurse would arrive
with a baby carriage to bear her away. As the door shut behind her the change
would begin in me.
I would retreat as she crept forth, but not too far.
We’d reached an understanding during the in-between times, when there was no
Lyle or Deirdre to claim one or the other of us. She wasn’t as sullen and
resentful of me as she’d been at first, and I had decided that there would be
no forgetting this time. I still hated the fact that she was a part of me, that
I was so terribly damaged, but she was a part of me and I had finally
realized that I needed her.
I knew that if I survived this we’d eventually have
to merge if I was going to have any hope of a balanced life. She had my courage
and strength, I had her intelligence and love. We needed each other to be
whole. In preparation for the time that we would be one, and her memories would
be fully mine, I stayed as close to her as I could, even during the worst
times.
So, after Deirdre was removed for the night, the
other part of me came out and prepared for him. She never used his name,
even in the privacy of our mind, even though her entire existence revolved
around him. She was the one who showered and styled our hair, applied makeup
the way he liked, donned the sheer, silky nightgowns he’d purchased for us. She
made sure we were ready and kneeling by the easy chair that he’d had brought in
for himself. She was the one who kept us there, all night if necessary, because
she knew he’d show up eventually.
And she was right. He always showed up eventually.
Sometimes it was almost immediately after Deirdre was taken away, and heaven
help us if we weren’t waiting by the chair, not matter how little time he’d
left us! I often felt he arrived early on those occasions simply so that he
would have an excuse for his rage. Sometimes he didn’t come until after
midnight. Once he came mere minutes before Deirdre was supposed to arrive.
And the visits weren’t always a prelude to rape.
Sometimes he would have a nice dinner delivered to the room, talk over the
events of the day, and generally pretend that we were a loving couple. I was
very grateful for my other self during those times. I could see that it would
have been easy for a woman as broken down as I was supposed to be to fall for
his smooth charm and false gentleness. She would have ended up completely enslaved,
praying for a kind word from him, devastated by his anger, existing only to
serve him.
Even though my alternate did exist only to
serve him, it was only out of survival, there was no real desire to please him,
only to avoid the pain he doled out so willingly. She didn’t have the
intelligence or ability to care the way he wanted us to. I could care
the way he wanted, but I was removed from his brainwashing techniques by her.
Insanity can be a blessing.
Other times he would come, and for whatever reason,
simply beat us and leave. Once again my skin was a mottled mass of bruises,
welts, and abrasions in various stages of healing. He was careful, for the most
part, not to mar my face. Since my daytime attire consisted only of black
turtleneck shirts and blue overalls the marks were well concealed and none of
my infrequent visitors knew anything about the damage being done to me.
I actually preferred the latter visits to the other
two. Both his strange fantasy of love and his brutal rapes left me feeling like
I’d spent a week in a cesspool. A simple beating was nothing in comparison to
the havoc his other attentions wreaked on my soul. The other, obviously, didn’t
feel the same.
She didn’t care what Lyle did to us, as long as it
didn’t involve pain. If he’d told us to parade naked through the Centre she’d
have done it without a qualm. She had no dignity, no pride. All that mattered
to her was our well being physically. I wouldn’t have survived that period
without her.
Life had settled into a routine. Deirdre prospered,
Lyle was as happy as Lyle could be, and I endured. Of course, it couldn’t
last.